This invention relates to a novel floating impeller lure that is easy to cast, will not twist fishing line, and retrieves the hook is the hook up position.
The recreational or sports fisherman has available a wide variety of artificial fish lures that can be employed to attract and catch fish. One common family or lures (or baits) is known as "buzzbaits." A buzzbait, or any "buzzing" impeller or blade type lure, is intended to imitate the thrashing of bait or forage fish on the water's surface as they are chased by predator fish. A buzzbait generally has a metal reaction impeller(s) rotating around a wire shaft with an attached trailing dressed hook. In practice, the buzzbait is retrieved along the surface of the water by the rapid cranking of the reel by the fisherman while keeping the rod tip in an overhead position. The rapid retrieval speed in not only necessary to keep the lure on the surface of the water, but also to cause the high rotational impeller speed that results in thrashing of the surface of the water. This phenomenon is called "buzzing" by most fishermen familiar with the techniques.
All metal buzzbaits with large impellers are very heavy and require lengthy rods and large fast-retrieve reels for casting and retrieving. As is known with prior art buzzbaits, casting with this heavy tackle is a very tiring process because the reel cranking must begin just before the lure hits the water so it will not sink below the water surface. Any malfunction in the process, such as reel backlash, can cause considerable problems because the buzzbait sinks and snags itself on brush, weeds, etc.
Alternative floating top water baits with small impellers abound and are in wide use by fishermen. By nature, however, floating top water baits with small impellers are not effective buzzbaits, even though they are effective top water lures. The reason for this is that only small impellers may be used because only slight amounts of countertorque weighting can be practically built into the small floating top water belt. Also, the hooks are generally attached to the floating body and, consequently, are not readily made snag proof.
In general, the basic problem is that all rotating impellers, due to bearing surface friction, generate torque that causes the lure to tend to rotate axially. Buzzbaits with a large impeller and a large single hook have a tendency to rotate axially, which is usually countered by the lure and hook laying on their side or in some other undesirable position. The rotation of the hook into an undesirable position means that the hook is not riding in an upright position, the position where the point is upstanding and the proper position for a fish to bite it.
The inventor has searched the prior art from as early as 1870, including the following U.S. patents by number: U.S. Pat. No. 104,930 to Chapman; U.S. Pat. No. 574,992 to Hinckley; U.S. Pat. No. 1,943,283 to Beil; U.S. Pat. No. 2,554,049 to Mace; U.S. Pat. No. 2,569,057 to Hinerman; U.S. Pat. No. 2,612,717 to Kuehnel; U.S. Pat. No. 2,804,713 to Johnson; U.S. Pat. No. 2,952,936 to White; and, U.S. Pat. No. 4,416,080 to Morrissette. A drawback to the devices disclosed in these patents is that none of them are capable of preventing line twist; none of them insure that the hook is retrieved in the hook point up position; and none of them combine a buzzbait feature, with a floating lure, with these other desirable advantages. As a result, there is a need in the art for providing a floating impeller lure which is aerodynamically designed to provide minimum air resistance when casting, which buzzes when retrieved and yet does not contribute appreciatively to line twist and which retrieves an attached in-line single hook with the hook in the upstanding position. It, therefore, is an object of the invention to provide a floating impeller lure that functions as a buzzbait, does not appreciatively attribute to line twist, and which insures that the hook will be retrieved with the point in the upright position.